‘To whom much is given, much will be expected, and to whom more dignity is inscribed, more service will be exacted.’ — St. Luke 12:48
In the real and mythical world, where martyrs who die in the prime of their lives are bestowed headlines and immortality (JFK, RFK and even the legendary Achilles), men who pass away in their sunset years due to natural causes usually get just a footnote. Unfairly or not, there seems to be more drama when a soldier dies in battle, not when he fades into the sunset.
But not for Edward M. Kennedy, the only Kennedy brother to comb gray hair. When he died on Aug. 25 of brain cancer at the ripe old age of 77 (compared to his three older brothers, that is), he made headlines, too. Not because of the pain of “what could have been,” but because of the glory of what already “had been,” because of him.
In the years he outlived his brothers (Joe Jr., John and Robert) and nephews (David, Michael and John Jr.), in his 47 years in the Senate (President Obama was only a year old when Kennedy was elected senator from Massachusetts), Kennedy gave back to his Creator a reason for the precious gift of years: He made good use of that gift. He made many lives better because of that bonus.
An imperfect person like all of us, Kennedy is said to have his stamp on every piece of significant social legislation in the US in the last five decades. To us Filipinos who have millions of countrymen in the US, those pieces of legislation have also left a mark. Kennedy, who descended from Irish immigrants, worked for a better migrant policy in the US. Undoubtedly influenced by him, his oldest son, cancer survivor Ted Jr., was among those who observed the 1986 snap elections in the Philippines, particularly in election hotspot Antique.
Kennedy championed legislation concerning civil rights, health care, education, voting rights and labor. He was chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions at his death. He led the congressional effort to impose sanctions on South Africa over apartheid, pushed for peace in Northern Ireland, won a ban on arms sales to the dictatorship in Chile and denounced the Vietnam War. In 2002, he voted against authorizing the Iraq war; later, he called that opposition “the best vote I’ve made in my 44 years in the United States Senate.”
He carried not only the burden of the unfinished tasks of his brothers — he did not shirk from it. Those of us who have sometimes crumpled under the weight of great expectations appreciate the strength of Ted Kennedy. Ted took the burden, often citing to the press what their mother Rose, who died at 104, always dinned on her children: “To those whom much is given, much is expected.”
On a personal level, he had to be the family’s anchor even when he himself probably was adrift. In November 1963, Ted was the one who told his ailing father Joe that Jack had been shot. “There’s been a bad accident,” he was quoted as saying. “The president has been hurt very badly. In fact, he died,” Kennedy sobbed to the old man. In June 1968, Ted flew from Los Angeles to New York with his brother Bobby’s casket. And in July 1999, Ted held Caroline and the family together following the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash. “The enormity of this series of tragedies . . . would have put most of us out of commission,” John Culver, a friend and fellow senator, is quoted as saying in the book “Last Lion.”
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in a thank-you note to Ted after he walked her daughter Caroline down the aisle at the latter’s wedding, wrote: “You have always been there. Every graduation, every big decision, every trouble, every sad and every happy day. On you, the carefree youngest brother, fell a burden a hero would beg to be spared. Sick parents, lost children, desolate wives. You are a hero. Everyone is going to make it because you are always there with your love.”
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For me, a Kennedy-watcher since I was old enough to hook my strap on their ideals, Ted Kennedy’s story is essentially one of redemption.
He rose above his imperfections — the reported drinking, womanizing and reckless behavior, Chappaquidick and the failed 1980 presidential bid — to become a living hero for the disadvantaged. Making laws takes time, a lot of negotiations and politics. Usually, presidents, not individual lawmakers, get the credit for landmark legislation passed under their watch. But Kennedy labored on for five decades, showing he did not need to be president to make a difference in the world. And when he died and people looked at his report card, it was filled with good marks.
The “carefree youngest brother,” undoubtedly pampered by his parents and older siblings, redeemed himself after years of stumbling and falling. Ted Kennedy’s life teaches us that it is never too late to grab a second chance. He should be the poster man for all those who struggle to redeem themselves.
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At the Democratic National Convention in New York in 1980, when he conceded the nomination to then President Jimmy Carter, Kennedy synthesized the purpose his brothers died for and which he lived for. In his speech, he also gave the hope that even after a torch bearer has passed on, the torch, the dream, shall never die.
“Some day, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”
His failings will be just a footnote in history. Ted Kennedy’s work as a public servant — that will be forever.
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com)